The State of Tennessee and the nonprofit legal advocacy organization Students for Fair Admissions filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday challenging the Department’s Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) program.
The HSI program, administered under the Department’s Office of Postsecondary Education, is a discretionary grant exclusively awarded to institutions of higher education that have “an enrollment of undergraduate full-time equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic students.”
For Fiscal Year 2024, the program’s total appropriation was $228,890,000.
A federal grant program that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American—it’s unconstitutional.
Today, @AGTennessee and @Fair_Admissions announced a lawsuit against the Hispanic-Serving Institution federal grant program.… pic.twitter.com/A4WSnJVAyc
— TN Attorney General (@AGTennessee) June 11, 2025
Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions’ lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, argues that the HSI program engages in unconstitutional racial balancing and exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority.
The complaint reads:
The Department of Education cannot discriminate based on race or ethnicity—even when Congress orders it to. Yet under the Higher Education Act, the Department awards grants to colleges and universities only if they enroll a certain number of Hispanic students.
The plaintiffs explain that while all of Tennessee’s colleges and universities serve Hispanic and low-income students, the institutions are not eligible to receive funding from the HSI program because “they don’t have the right mix of ethnicities on campus.”
In addition, the plaintiffs noted that a recently-enacted law in Tennessee prohibits higher education institutions from making decisions based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin, which further prevents Tennessee institutions from benefiting from the HSI program.
The complaint continues:
The HSI program encourages Tennessee institutions of higher education to serve and benefit “Hispanic students” versus others…The HSI program’s discriminatory requirements therefore undermine Tennessee’s laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.
The complaint goes on to cite SFFA v. Harvard, in which Chief Justice John Roberts articulated that “the student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race.”
Wednesday’s complaint seeks a declaratory judgment that the HSI program’s racial criteria are unconstitutional and a permanent injunction barring the Department of Education from using racial or ethnic thresholds when determining grant eligibility.
“A federal grant system that openly discriminates against students based on ethnicity isn’t just wrong and un-American—it’s unconstitutional,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement.
“Treating people differently because of their skin color and ancestry drags our country backwards. The HSI program perversely deprives even needy Hispanic students of the benefits of this funding if they attend institutions that don’t meet the government’s arbitrary quota,” Skrmetti added.
Edward Blum, president of SFFA, further emphasized, “This lawsuit is not about denying opportunity to any racial or ethnic group. It is about ensuring that opportunity is extended to everyone on an equal basis.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “AG Jonathan Skrmetti” by TN AG’s Office and “Department of Education HQ” is by Chris Zubak-Skees CCNC2.0.
